


Shattered Impressions

by GuileandGall



Series: Diary of a Nobody [5]
Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5
Genre: Angst, Betrayal, Broken Bones, Broken Families, Broken Promises, Canon-Typical Violence, Distress, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Father-Daughter Relationship, Grief/Mourning, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Other, Partner Violence, Throwing Rocks at my Characters, Uncertainty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:15:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25340737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuileandGall/pseuds/GuileandGall
Summary: Awoken out of a deep sleep just after dawn, Leah struggles to catch up with her speeding world as it spins haphazardly out of her control.
Relationships: Deputy | Judge/John Seed, Female Deputy | Judge/John Seed
Series: Diary of a Nobody [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1757959
Comments: 8
Kudos: 11





	Shattered Impressions

**Author's Note:**

> Sincerest and most hearty thanks again to @amistrio and @chyrstis for beta reading this piece for me. You guys are amazing. I cannot explain how much I appreciate it.

**-1-**

The alarm sounded sharply through the small bedroom. A woman rolled over with a groan and slammed her hand down on it. “Why didn’t you turn that off last night?” _s_ he asked herself as she lay on her stomach and blinked at the light streaming into the window through the blinds.

Leah Rook might have stayed in bed longer, but voices outside her window startled her. She was very much awake now.

Pulling open the bedside drawer, she grabbed her pistol and hopped out of bed. Her empty hand plucked a silky robe off a hook and she hurriedly pulled it on over her tank top and boy shorts, awkwardly tying it one-handed.

Careful silent steps led her down the hall and into the living room. At the front door, she peeked out, edging the curtain away just enough to see where whoever they were might be. The door could not have opened without any noise, but she tried to do it as quietly as possible before tiptoeing out. She took only a few steps out the door before making her presence known.

“Hey!”

Two men in black pants and white ribbed shirts turned toward her in surprise.

“What the hell are you doing?” she asked, trying to figure that out for herself. One of them seemed to be trying to lift one of the half barrels of flowers that sat around the base of her porch.

“We’re helping the lady of the house?”

“I beg your pardon.”

“She told us to gather up everything outside.”

“Who?” she asked.

One man’s gaze dropped to the weapon in her hand and he reached out and touched the other’s shoulder.

“Mrs. Ruthie,” he answered. Both of them locked eyes on the pistol.

Leah’s brows furrowed in mingled curiosity and suspicion. “Her place is on the other side of the parcel,” she said. There was something important in what the man said, but Leah couldn’t quite put her finger on it. She tipped her chin toward the fence a good forty feet from where they were standing. Then she continued in an attempt to correct any misunderstandings. “This land, this house belongs to me.”

“Ah,” the taller one said. “Then we’ll just—”

“What are you helping her with?”

“We should be going,” the man insisted.

Knowing full well the impact of holding a weapon while asking questions, she shifted to let her service pistol become more visible. “What are you doing?”

“I think it’s best you talk to Mrs. Rook.”

Leah pulled her cellphone out of her robe’s pocket and called the Sheriff’s Office. “Hi Nancy, can you send someone out to my place? I’m putting two trespassers under citizen’s arrest. They’ll be near the porch. Can you send Staci or Joey to pick them up? I’d like to press charges.”

“ _Will do, hon. You all right?_ _”_

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just got woken up by folks skulking through my yard is all. And I need to go check on my mom.”

_“I’ll send someone right out.”_

The phone dropped into Leah’s pocket, then she fully turned her attention back to the intruders again. “We going to do this politely or are you going to make me shoot your knees out?”

Both men raised their hands and moved toward the porch.

“Have a seat on the steps.” She kept an eye on them as she inched back to her front door. Pulling out the drawer in the table that sat there, she pulled a pair of handcuffs out. Leah linked the men to one another through the rails of the banister. “Someone should be here shortly,” she told them as she hopped on one foot to pull on her running shoes that had been sitting just inside the front door. “Don’t go getting yourselves lost again.”

A minute later, she was dashing across her family’s land toward her mother’s home. The pinpoint accuracy of her focus locked onto the ranch-style home that had been built by her father’s father’s father. She ignored details that tickled at her peripheral vision and hearing—voices in the stables, people moving near the barn.

She barely missed a step as she scaled the fence that separated the backyard of the house from the fields lying fallow and untouched. Taking the stairs two at a time, she landed heavy on the back porch. Leah slowed enough to tug the screen door out of the way before she bounced against the back door. Stunned to a halt, her attention fell to the doorknob, which she turned again before leaning into the door.

“Locked?” she muttered as her mind ran. _Mom never locks the doors._ Even after Leah begged her to do just that after Dad’s death.

There was a flicker of movement just barely visible behind the lace curtain in the door’s window. Leah pounded on the wood with her fist. She needed to make sure her mother was okay. Nothing else mattered, not even finding out what the hell was going on, not until she laid eyes on her mother. 

When the door swung open, Leah’s forward motion rocked back onto her heels when she stared at the vaguely familiar face of a young woman. Blonde hair, blue eyes, and a floral dress that looked incredibly out of place in the dusty farmhouse of a grieving widow.

“Good morning, Leah.” The woman’s voice was buttery and delicate, feeling almost as out of place as the lacy outfit. While Leah remembered the woman’s face, she could not pluck her name out of the roiling sea in her head.

Leah wasn’t sure she really liked the way this woman curled her name around her tongue. It reminded her of the warning hiss of a snake, or maybe that was the projection of her own tension and anxiety onto the greeting.

“Mornin’,” she replied, moving into the doorway. If the woman would not move, Leah would make her. 

But the woman didn’t move from her position blocking the door when Leah surged forward with intent. It brought them to within inches of one another, far beyond the usual propriety offered by the concept of personal space.

“Can I help you?” The woman didn’t back down despite their rather intimate proximity.

The weirdness level of the situation continued to rise, as did Leah’s hackles. The younger woman straightened to her full height though that still left her having to look up to keep their eye contact.

“Remind me of your name again,” Leah said, barely trying to maintain politeness. _This is wrong. This is all wrong. Where is my mother?_

“Faith,” the other woman purred in a genteel voice. “Faith Seed.”

“That’s right,” Leah replied with a nod. “I’m here to see my mother, if you don’t mind.” The last bit came out with a bit more venom that she really intended.

“She’s upstairs.”

“Excuse me, then.”

Faith’s reluctance telegraphed in the huff she gave Leah when the shorter woman inched forward insistent upon entering the home. Whether it was the bodily contact as Leah bumped into her, or the determined look she wore, Rook gained entry. Moving from the door with a quicker pace, her eyes darted to and fro, trying to figure out why all these people were here. Well, three really shouldn’t be that surprising, except that for the last six months her mother had barely allowed a single visitor, let alone a herd of them, small or not.

“What’s going on here?” Leah asked as she noticed two women in the living room emptying her father’s bookshelves into boxes. Leah jumped when Faith’s voice came from right behind her.

“Probably best to speak with your mother about that,” she told her. Faith waved a hand at the other two women, both dressed in all white, and they continued packing up the books.

Leah shot a sharp glare over her shoulder even more determined to do just what she suggested. She glided up the stairs rather than stomping up them like a rhino, recalling all the lectures she received about that particular behavior as a girl. Creeping down the hallway, she pressed a hand to one of the bedroom doors that was left slightly ajar. The room had been emptied completely—not a photo left on the walls, not a stick of furniture. Pressing it open more, she noticed that even the curtains had been removed.

Her heart raced in her chest, thumping against her ribcage by the time she reached her parents’ room. The knuckle of her middle finger rapped against the wood before she pressed it open with caution.

“I said I’ll do this myself.” Her mother’s voice shook like she’d been crying. Despite the warning in her tone, Leah pressed the door open. The look of relief on her mother’s face when she saw Leah was all the incentive her daughter needed to cross the space, letting the door close loudly behind her.

“Mama,” she said. It was a question and a greeting aimed to deliver comfort all at once.

“What are you doing here? I thought you weren’t going to be able to make it down until after your graduation.”

“I wasn’t,” Leah told her crouching and wrapping her mother in a tight hug. She tried her best to ignore the fact that her mother had a stack of her father’s sweaters in her lap and was surrounded by boxes that brimmed with his things.

It had been hard to see traces of him all over the house when she visited, but somehow seeing her dad’s whole life boxed up made his absence seem more visceral, more real, and final. His dresser was bare, save for little dusty shapes that outlined where the items he had kept there once sat.

“But I decided that I just needed to check in on you,” she admitted, easing her grip on her mother, and giving her a sweet smile.

“You probably should have dressed first, sweetie. Running around in your robe really is not the most prudent course of action.”

Leah laughed. “Yes, you’re right. But I heard voices outside my window that woke me up.”

“Oh, my goodness. Are you okay?” Ruthie asked, shock and concern all over her face.

“I’m fine, Mama. Sheriff’s coming out to pick up a couple of trespassers. They said they were there for my landscaping,” she said in a confused tone.

Ruthie’s hand covered her mouth. “Oh, no. They were only supposed to pick up the items I had the hands set out here,” she corrected. “Poor dears must have gotten confused.”

“Clearly.” Leah held her mom’s left hand, looking down at it, at the rings she still wore. “What’s going on, Mama?”

Her mother sighed and laid her other hand on top of Leah’s. “I thought it was time,” she admitted quietly.

“For?” Leah prompted, looking back up at her mom.

“Your father … God rest his soul. He’s … It’s so much harder.” The little sob in her throat even choked Leah up. “I wake up in this room, and everything is just the way he always left it. My clothes are still hanging next to his. He’s everywhere.”

Leah pulled her mother into another tight hug as she cried. Tears streamed down Leah’s cheeks too as she tried futilely to comfort her mother’s grief.

“I’m not going to be able to move forward if this place remains a shrine to Paul’s memory.” Ruthie held her daughter tighter.

Leah knew her mother was right. Knew this was a healthy choice, a step that she needed to take, but it still broke her heart. Her father had spent almost his entire life in that house and suddenly his presence was being stripped from it. It felt wrong, but in a way, it also wasn’t fair to expect her mother to live in a mausoleum to the man she’d loved and raised a family with.

“Can I help?” the young woman only just managed to eke the words out of her tight throat.

Another tight squeeze came before her mother released her and held her face in both her hands. “Are you sure?”

Leah cradled one of the hands on her cheeks and turned her head to give the warm palm a kiss as she nodded. “If you are, then so am I.” It wasn’t the whole truth, but it wasn’t a lie. Leah wasn’t sure she’d ever be really ready to push away her father’s memory. Even so, she could understand her mother not wanting to remain in a shrine to the man she’d loved almost her whole life.

“Thank you, sweetie.”

“You’re welcome, Mama.” Leah pressed a kiss to her mother’s forehead and shifted back. “Where should I start?”

“His nightstand,” she said, turning and pointing toward it. The glassiness in her mother’s eyes and the state of the rest of the room suggested that she had perhaps already tried to clear that piece of furniture and given up.

**-2-**

Gradually the traces of Paul Rook disappeared from the bedroom amid stories that brought both tears and laughter amid the aching fondness. Leah’s father had been a big man who lived a hard, but robust life. It wasn’t just filled with struggle, but with great moments and deeds. His was not an easy shadow to grow up in, and all of his kids tried to live up to the example he and their mother set. Leah wasn’t sure she’d ever even come close.

At one point, when things were on track, she thought she might be able to offer as much to the community as her parents, but then her dad died. With his death, she lost a foundation—the support that helped her hone her direction. She knew that she could have taken out loans to finish school, but law school would not have given her time to be there for her mother. And of all the ways Leah was like her father, her dedication to people, to family, stood out among the others. It had been her choice to put law school off, but it was a decision heavily weighted in the loss of her father, which she could never fault anyone else for.

In the bottom of her father’s dresser, Leah found a drawer that almost shattered her. It was filled with handmade birthday, holiday, and Father’s Day cards from her brothers and her. Everything they’d ever given him that wasn’t practical, or which hadn’t found a place on the dresser or the shelves downstairs rested in that drawer. Shaky paintings drawn by unsteady hands, awkward clay creations crafted in school rooms, even haphazardly written letters to Santa had found their way into that drawer.

Leah couldn’t have spoken if she wanted to. And emptying that drawer went far too slowly because she studied each artifact in turn before wrapping the fragile ones and stacking all the dry crinkly pages together. Leah packed the box with an abundance of care, perhaps too much, but to her these were more than mere possessions or trophies. They spoke of something deeper.

The roll of tape screeched in reply as she finally sealed the box. She didn’t know what to write on the outside and decided to go with _Dad_ _’s Trinkets_. It wasn’t a meaningful enough name for what was contained within, not by a long shot, but it was all her bleary-eyed, grief-stricken, tired brain could muster.

She set the box atop a few others from the closet, which sent her mother into crying jags off and on. This task weighed on both of the Rook women, and that fact wasn’t lost on Leah. Stretching, she shimmied into the closet and grabbed the hat boxes off the top shelf, removing them to the bed.

Finding the nearly pristine buff colored one had little effect on her. Her father only wore that hat to church and on special occasions. She set it aside and checked the other box. That one made her knees a little weak; it contained _his_ hat—the deep chocolate colored one that he wore every day. Whenever she remembered her dad, he was wearing that hat.

Taking it out of the box, she examined it, the way the brim was bent just so. Her fingers traced the familiar line. Like a child afraid of being caught with something she shouldn’t have, Leah glanced over her shoulder at her mother. Ruthie had her face buried in one of her father’s work shirts; her shoulders shook gently with silent sobs. Her mother had always been good at that, Leah realized in the moment, controlling her emotions.

Better than her daughter at least, Leah wore her heart on her sleeve. She didn’t bear the same kind of guile, or ability to cover over her feelings. Her tongue pushed over her lips as she weighed the idea running through her head, but Leah couldn’t stop herself. She lifted the hat to her own head. Even now it still fell over her eyes and ears, just like every time her father had playfully dropped it on her head as a kid.

It was almost too much. She ripped it off her head and dropped it in the box like it had burned her. Leah leaned there, teeth burrowing into the inside of her cheek as she held onto the footboard of the bed trying to fight back the sobs brought on by her broken little heart. She missed her dad, his laugh, his smile, his hugs. _He gave the best hugs_ , she recalled, squeezing her eyes shut and trying hard to swallow her grief to keep it from bursting out of her like it had in the church prior to his funeral.

“Mrs. Ruthie,” a voice called from the hallway. A gentle knock at the door followed. Leah rushed to right the hat in the box and get the lid back on it. “Can we take some of those boxes for you, dear?”

Faith’s face peeked into the room and Leah didn’t hide her scowl. Leah knew none of this was her fault specifically, but at the moment it felt good to have someone to blame and the leggy blonde was a convenient target of opportunity.

“Yes,” Leah’s mother answered. “Please. Thank you so much for your help. I don’t know what I’d do without it. Without both your help,” she added looking up at her daughter from the stool she sat on near the closet that now bore no more traces of her husband.

“You’re so very welcome,” Faith said sweetly before Leah could say anything. The woman entered and crossed straight toward the older woman. She hugged Ruthie tightly, and Leah felt a pang of jealousy at the way her mother clung to this veritable stranger.

A pair of young men had followed Faith up the stairs and one lifted a heavy box while the other took Mr. Rook’s dress hat and set it atop it. When he moved toward the other box on the bed, Leah placed her hand over it and narrowed her eyes at him for good measure.

“Oh, he’ll take that for you,” Faith suggested.

“Not this one,” Leah insisted. “Mama, if you don’t mind, I’d like to take Daddy’s hat.”

Ruthie looked over at her with traces of empathy and disquiet. “Sweet girl,” she said, reaching out for Leah’s hand.

“I know it’s hard to let go,” Faith added, placing a delicate hand onto her own chest “But the Father—”

“Do not presume—,” Leah started, turning her gaze on the other woman, and holding up her hand to caution her. She did not need some Bible study leader telling her anything about her religious obligations, or about how her father was in a better place, and that all this was for God’s glory or some other line. After an hour going through her father’s things, her nerves were too raw to deal politely with anyone’s interference—no matter how well-intentioned.

“Leah,” her mother interrupted, her voice held that same note of chastising comfort that it did when she was younger. “Your dad’s gone. Clinging to these things …” she looked at the items surrounding them. “Yes, they can spark happy memories and serve as reminders, but we don’t need to anchor ourselves to his possessions to remember the man your father was.”

 _Truth—painful and honest_. She knew it when she heard it; still Leah’s heart ached in her chest. While at first glance, she had moved on with her life; she knew she still struggled with the absence of her father. For her, the grieving process had yet to conclude. Even so, her mother’s suggestion worked as it had been designed. Leah removed her hand from the box and stepped away from the bed, moving toward the window.

The footsteps moved through the room behind her, coming and going for several minutes. Leah didn’t watch them shuttle the traces of her father from the house he spent his life in. Instead, she looked out on the fields that should have been turned by now, should be budding with traces of lush green growth.

She watched in silence as two men forced open the lock on the gate and swung it open. “Mama,” she said quietly at first.

The gentle conversation between her mother and Faith continued as if Leah had said nothing.

“Mom,” she repeated, turning when she noticed someone leading Lincoln, her horse, out of the stable. “They’re taking the horses?” she asked her mother, shooting Faith an accusatory glare.

“Pardon?” Faith asked, clearly offended.

“Give us a few minutes,” Ruthie asked.

Faith pursed her lips, which still bore a polite smile. The look in her cool blue eyes that turned on Leah suggested the other woman was clearly disinterested in being dismissed.

“Leah, dear,” Ruthie Rook said, joining her daughter near the window. “We discussed this.”

Green eyes narrowed at the older woman with curiosity. No such conversation ever occurred between the two of them.

“I cannot keep up with this place on my own.”

“You’re not on your own,” Leah argued.

“You shouldn’t have to anchor yourself to this place.”

“This land has been in the family for generations.”

“I know, but your brothers have taken other roads. And you deserve the chance to move on to your own dreams. This place—”

“Is our home.” Leah slipped her arm out of her mother’s grip.

Ruthie shook her head.

“What?” It was the only word Leah could find, but it seemed to be more than her mother could locate.

Glassy brown eyes blinked down at Leah. It was like all those times when her mother found herself having to break her daughter’s heart in tiny yet memorable ways.

“Mama. What’s going on?” A frenzy rose in her once more, similar to the panic she felt hearing men outside her bedroom that morning.

“I donated the livestock and equipment to the church.”

“You what?” The air rushed out of Leah’s lungs like she’d been punched in the gut. She couldn’t find her footing and stumbled back against the sill of the window.

“Your father would want the horses cared for. And the equipment used rather than rusting away in the barn.”

Leah shook her head. She wasn’t sure how she felt about all this. Mother had a point, but … but this wasn’t right. She couldn’t be serious, could she? Leah wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure of anything anymore. Her heart hurt, her head swimming in grief and anger and fear. Leah did the only thing she could: scrabbled up and staggered out of the door.

**-3-**

Hearing Lincoln’s high-pitched cry pulled Leah to the backdoor faster than she might have moved otherwise. Confusion, anger, fear, and uncertainty roiled beneath her skin and coursed through her veins.

“Stop it!” she yelled across the yard. “Stop!”

A man and a woman looked at her, the man still tugging at Lincoln’s reins like he was pulling a wagon across the park. Leah ran over to him and grabbed the man’s shoulder. Before she could think better of it, Leah decked him. A sharp pain bloomed in her hand and shot up her arm. The man hit the ground with a dull thud and a protest. Leah’s attention was on Lincoln.

“Shh,” she told him, trying to ease him through sound and touch. “It’s going to be fine, Lincoln. Calm down.”

Leah ignored everyone else. It was far easier to pour all her attention into the distraught beast she’d spent years bonding with.

She pressed her palm over the white diamond on Lincoln’s nose. He was only ever hers in spirit only. If her mother signed over the papers … Leah preferred not to think about it. She focused on Lincoln, on calming him so he would not injure himself when these people again tried to get him into the horse trailer that had been pulled behind the house.

The horse responded to her, calming, mostly. Like her, tension remained in him beneath the surface even as he responded affectionately to her touch. Leah poured her focus absolutely into that one task, soothing Lincoln. It was not unlike how she managed to get through helping her mother; her mind focused on the most incremental bit of the task before her.

Small steps carried her backward, Lincoln following her awkward movements with strength and power. Even as she whispered her own gentle goodbyes to him, they still moved. Eventually, she couldn’t take another step. She nuzzled her face against his.

“Good boy,” she whispered to him.

“Leah!”

The voice sent a shiver down her spine, which straightened hard with the snap of her head. A sense of relief flooded her at the sight of him. She almost forgot everything that had happened that morning in the rush of emotion at seeing him there. She held out the reins, not even waiting to know if someone had taken them. Then she rushed toward the porch, scaling the steps with heavy thudding footfalls. When she reached him, she slipped her arms around John’s waist.

A hollowness crept over the warmth she expected to find. He didn’t fold around her like he usually did. Instead a statuesque stiffness distanced them in a way she’d never experienced with John Seed. His hand fell onto her shoulder, giving it a momentary squeeze before the pressure of his touch pushed her away. Physically a gulf opened up between them.

Her green eyes lifted to his face, the questions racing through her head all written in the hurt filling her gaze.

“John?”

He pulled the backdoor closed behind him. Leah could see other figures in the house. She was almost certain that one of them was Joseph, his brother. Her mother had called him _the Father_ at the brunch months earlier. In that moment, an epiphany hit her. _That_ _’s what Faith said, too_. Leah had just thought she was talking about the Holy Trinity—God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, like she’d been taught in Sunday School.

Suddenly, everything felt like she was standing in the center of a cyclone. Nothing felt real.

“Why are you here?” Leah finally asked, unaware that John had been talking to her already.

His brow furrowed over his bright eyes. “That’s what I was saying, Leah. Are you all right?”

“No. No, I’m not _all right_ , _John_.” She pushed at his chest trying to get his hands off her. It all felt wrong. The way he was looking at her. His family being there.

“It’s going to be fine. Change can be traumatic.” He set his hand on her shoulder.

Even his touch, which she’d craved so often felt off. Tainted and distant somehow … perfunctory. Leah shrugged it off, easing a little farther from him. “Touch me again, and I’ll show you traumatic,” she snapped, discomfort and uncertainty twisting everything she thought she should be feeling. In her mind, the pieces were starting to come together; her heart was slower on the uptake.

“Leah. It’s me.”

Her eyes fixed on his face in realization at how right he was. She felt sick. How could she have been so stupid?

“It was you, wasn’t it?” she breathed.

He looked momentarily confused, realizing they were having two different conversations. “What do you mean?”

“This. All of this. I mean you’re a lawyer. You’d know just how to formulate a donation of this scale. And with a stroke of a pen everything my father worked his whole life for would disappear.”

“Leah.”

“Don’t _Leah_ me, _John Seed._ ” She bit back sharply. “Is that …” she stared at him unable to give voice to the idea that sprang into her head. She gestured between them. “Is that what this was?” The question hung between them as she searched his face for any trace that it could be true. “You distract me? Take my focus away from what was happening here?”

“No,” he answered instantaneously, firmly.

A part of her wanted it to be true even as Leah floated backward a step. “I’m not sure I believe you,” she said, voice quavering despite her efforts.

Leah wanted him to have nothing to do with all of this. Wanted everything that happened between them in the last few months to be real, but she couldn’t believe a word that came out of his mouth. Not while standing on her parents’ porch watching people load up the family’s horses and park the equipment near the service gates. Not while people shifted boxes inside the house, which they removed one by one.

“Is this your part in it all?” she asked, her voice breaking but quiet.

“I assure you,” John started, reaching for her this time.

She swatted at his outstretched hand, backing away with every step he took toward her.

“So, _John._ ” Anger fueled her now, kindled by hurt and broken trust. “Just how many widows’ daughters in Central Montana did you—?”

“It’s not like that,” he hissed. John’s hand clapped over her mouth and he backed her against the wall. His lean body pressed to hers as he held her gaze. “I have not. Would not,” he swore on a growl, like somehow his adamance could overwrite the blatant honesty of everything happening around them at that moment.

Leah opened her mouth and bit down hard on the fleshy bit of his palm. John howled and recoiled from her. It was all the room she needed. Pulling her knee up hard and fast between his legs, she doubled him over in an instant. Her fingers threaded into his hair in a way that bordered on tender. Then her fist tightened to hold him in place for the punch that came an instant later.

“You fucking two-faced bastard.” _I was falling for you_. Swiping at the hot tears stinging her cheeks again, Leah hopped over the banister and landed on her feet in the grass, then took off for the front of the house. The sight of flashing lights gave her heart another lift. _Finally,_ someone who could clear up this situation.

She slowed near the corner of the front porch, looking back at the house with more confidence now that she felt she had back up. That feeling wavered when she watched Joseph saunter out of the front door. Leah noticed Faith behind him; the young woman was embracing Leah’s mother, who seemed distraught by everything unfolding around them. She moved toward the steps, toward Joseph.

“Leah,” John’s voice was ragged, strained. Seeing the limp in his gait, however, did give her some satisfaction.

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” Joseph called out to her, pulling her attention from his brother.

Leah huffed a gruff, disbelieving laugh at him. “This is still my parents’ land.”

“Actually,” John interrupted as he stumbled ever closer, “as of midnight this morning, the deed for this property transferred to the Project at Eden’s Gate.”

Like someone opened a floodgate everything rushed out of her body, every thought and emotion. Leah felt beyond numb, more than empty. She couldn’t feel anything in that moment. Not the pounding, nor the shattering of her heart. She just stared into those blue eyes—the ones she’d trusted.

“Sheriff, thank you for coming so quickly,” Joseph’s voice rang in her head.

“Mr. Seed,” Earl Whitehorse replied, using his _official_ voice. Leah knew his various tones well. She’d spent the previous two summers working in his office, and he had been the one that hired her on as a deputy when she found herself in a hell of a spot after her dad died.

John straightened and tucked his hand into his jacket pocket. A stoicism wafted off him as he moved with that trademark liquid smoothness she knew so well. “This young lady is trespassing. Now, we’d rather do this without incident.” With every word, he moved toward her. Only when Sheriff Earl Whitehorse passed by her did she realize that John was in fact _not_ approaching her.

The youngest Seed brother handed over a copy of what Leah could only presume was the transfer papers for the farm to Earl, who inspected them dutifully.

“I’m sure you’d agree. After all,” John’s blue eyes fell on Leah with a coldness she couldn’t remember seeing there before, “it would be a shame to end a promising career before it even begins.”

It was that statement, that threat that broke her the frozen shell that had bound her. The whole world went red and all she could hear was a sound like the rushing of blood through her veins. Leah leapt at John, grabbing hold of his lapel for leverage before she punched him twice more in the face in rapid succession. She felt the sickening crunch of bone beneath her knuckles before a weightlessness took over her body.

Losing her grip on him as her feet came off the ground, she kicked futilely in his direction.

“Son of a bitch,” she screamed. “You bastard!”

“Rook. Rook!” Earl’s voice barely cut through the rage in her. “Goddamnit, Leah!”

She fought him every step of the way, until he had to let her loose. The instant her feet touched the ground, she turned on a dime and started back after John Seed. She’d teach him to mess with her, mess with her family. He took everything she knew; she’d be happy to return the favor.

“Damnit, Rook!” A thick arm looped around her waist and another face came into view.

“Leah. It’s not worth it,” Joey insisted. “Come on. Let’s go.”

“Please make sure the young woman steers clear. If she returns, we’ll be forced to press charges,” a man’s voice called across the front yard.

Leah surged into Deputy Joey Hudson, who just caught Leah in a hug of sorts. “Not worth it!” the other woman bit out as she battled the smaller woman’s strength.

“It’s my whole fucking life,” Leah replied, finally letting some of the fight eke out of her. One hand clutched at the back of Joey’s uniform.

“Don’t let them take the future, too,” Hudson whispered in her ear. “We’ll take a drive.”

“Yeah,” Whitehorse agreed. “Get you back to Helena.”

“I can’t leave,” Leah argued. “They took our land. What if …?” She didn’t know what might come next. To be fair, she really didn’t want to think about the few things left for them to take. Her gaze flashed back up to the porch in time to see Faith guide Leah’s mother back into the house.

“Let’s just get out of here,” Joey insisted. “We’ll figure the rest out once that’s done.”

“Fine,” Leah agreed reluctantly.

She didn’t leave completely of her own volition. Joey and the Sheriff all but pushed her to Hudson’s vehicle. And while Joey drove off, Earl stayed put. Leah wouldn’t know for how long, just that he was probably waiting for her to return, or at least making a show of keeping the peace for the people who’d somehow managed to talk her mother into signing over the house Leah had grown up in, the land she’d worked with her father growing up, the horses she learned how to ride on, and the equipment that taught her to drive. Nearly every good memory Leah Rook had was tied to that place. Those acres of green in the middle of Montana.

Losing that just made her feel her father’s loss more keenly and stoked her anger more brightly.

 _How could anyone target a grieving widow?_ she wondered.

Pushing her hand through her hair, Leah realized that she played right into it. Fell into the trap of a hunting spider whose venom blinded her, allowed her to hallucinate some pipe dream without seeing what was happening around her.

“So stupid,” she told herself.

 _How could you be so stupid, Leah_?


End file.
